Deborah Turrell Atkinson Fire Prayer

Fire Prayer

Deborah Turrell Atkinson

Poisoned Pen Press, Aug 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 1590584023

In Honolulu, Tanner Williams hires his high school friend Storm Kayama to travel to Moloka'i to insure his diabetic twelve year old son Luke is receiving proper care from his ex-wife the kid's mother, the acrimonious Jenny. At the same time her law partner and lover, Ian Hamlin is also going to Moloka'i to investigate whether a local kayaking company was negligent in the disappearance of Brock Liu, the son of an Oahu shipping mogul.

Doing a background check on Jenny, Storm realizes Tanner has reason for concern. She visits Jenny accompanied by Tanner, but soon after she leaves, Luke Williams discovers his mother's corpse. He calls the cops, but vanishes. Storm worries that the killer believes Luke is an eyewitness to the homicide of his mom; and is coming for the kid on the lam who also lacks his diabetes medicine. She and Ian begin to theorize that Brock's disappearance and Jenny's murder tie back to an unsolved decade old homicide that both were involved in.

The Hawaiian locales steal the show from a fun whodunit. The two investigations are cleverly designed so that they ultimately tie together although most of the book focuses on Kayama being in the eye of the storm. Although Storm and Ian as lawyers doing field work as investigators seems a non-starter (where is Jack Lord when you need him), mystery readers will enjoy touring Hawaii as Deborah Turrell Atkinson provides plenty of FIRE POWER (for further tales of Hawaii see PRIMITIVE SECRETS and GREEN ROOM).

Harriet Klausner